Today I will mostly be growing

After the heavy downpours of rain this week, I should have guessed that the slugs would be out in force.

I can officially declare that the slug hunting season is now open and they are heading to a vegetable plot near you (please not my lettuces again this year) so this is the time to get out your slug and snail reinforcements a bit quicker than I did.

Whilst I was watering my cabbages plot, removing yellowing leaves and any leaves that were touching the ground I had the misfortune to touch a slimy creature, yes thats right the dreaded slug! This was a small baby slug which has got into my plot before I managed to slug proof it with copper tape. Perhaps it was just reminding me to be a bit quicker off the mark for next year!

Needless to say it met its bitter end under foot. Well I have to be ruthless if I’m going to get any lettuce this year.

Click here for some organic solutions to Slugs.

Just Added:
My official Slug Counter will be totting up how many slugs I encounter in my plots this year, see the right hand side bar just under the calendar for total count so far.

Today I will mostly be thinning cabbages and pulling out my mini leeks which have sucumb to greenfly.

Cabbage Plot 2

Before Thinning (Wk 38 28.12.07)

After Thinning (Wk 40 12.01.0

My cabbages showed signs of whitefly which is a good time to create some space in the plot by thinning so that the pests don’t infect all plants. I thinned and destroyed the ones that had whitefly. Thinning also encourages growth as we will see in a few weeks time.

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Sunday 14th October 2007

Today I was mostly cutting down my runner bean mountain.

It has come to the end of the runner bean producing cycle. The beans left on the plant are stunted, yellow and are showing no signs of fattening up anytime soon so this has forced me into cutting down the structure to make way for my broad beans (Sutton variety) and overwintering peas (If I ever get them as they are currently floating around the postal system somewhere).

As the beanstalks had curled themselves around the canes, the best way I saw to remove them was to cut the plants off at the base of the plant near the bottom of the cane and then cut the stems near the pole going upwards and pulling off the plants.

I have left the runner bean roots in the ground so they can fix all the nitrogen and give the soil a nutrient boose overwinter. The roots are doing the hard work for me otherwise I would have had to dig more manure into the bed for next years veg. Its all very clever really.

Whitefly Pest News

Cabbages
I am still quite concerned about my holey cabbages, I have found fewer green caterpillars on the plants this past week but now I have a problem with whitefly and it is all over the backs of the leaves.

Carrots and Turnips
The whitefly is now congregating on my carrot leaves and on the underside of my turnip leaves. This pest is becoming a real pain to deal with by picking off by hand.

Solution
I went through the plot picking off and squishing whitefly and now I am trying an organic solution which I have seen on a few forums now. I have put a 2 squirts of washing up liquid into my 7 litre watering can and stirred well. Then watered over the affected plants in plot 1 and 2. I will keep you posted if this worked or not.

Mini Vegetables

Heres my mini vegetable feast:

I had estimated my carrots to be ready to harvest this week but when I picked one out of the ground I realised they were no where near ready. I don’t think I calculated the harvest date correctly and definately didn’t take into consideration the less light and heat at this time of the year! So I picked a few turnips and a radish to add to my mini veg harvest. Just think, in a top restaurant these slim pickings would be used in a gourmet meal!

Please see below for pictures of the current status of my 3 plots.

Sunday 7th October

This week I have mostly been squishing green caterpillars and whitefly from my cabbage leaves.
I have to say it isn’t a pleasant or enjoyable job, but if I want winter cabbage leaves I have to do it before the pests abliterate all of my seedlings.

Tiny Green Caterpillars

I have a holey cabbage problem in plot 2 where most of my seedlings have holes in their leaves. These have been left by tiny green caterpillars which hatched from larvae from the cabbage white butterfly.

I thought I had escaped the actually butterflies landing on my cabbages in the summer by putting the environmesh over the plot. However I didn’t read up about the larvae and caterpillars which appear up until late october, so some must have got underneath the netting and spread.

Cabbage Whitefly

I also have whitefly on the underside of my cabbage leaves. This is identifiable from the white trails on the leaf which is actually their larvae (see bottom leaf on picture below) and they leave behind mishapen leaves.

Pest Control

I am monitoring the plot daily and I run my fingers up and down the cabbage leaves squishing any whitefly and caterpillars I find or that drop off the leaves.

Useful links to caterpillar and whitefly cabbage problems.
Cabbage White Caterpillars
Cabbage Whitefly

I had to take all my peas out, they were lovely whilst they lasted. I had been eating the pods when there were a few white patches on the leaves, however this week the powdery mildew turned all the green leaves white and the pea pods were turning grey. So unfortunately they all had to come out of Plot 3 (Beans and Peas).

I have discovered there are pea varieties resistant to powdery mildew of which I will be trying next year. These include Kelvedon Wonder and Ambassador.

My lettuces have been munched and most have been completed destroyed by something. At first I couldn’t work out what the pest was but had a funny suspicion that even though I couldn’t see any slugs or slime trail, it must be them - Slugs.

So I ordered some Nemotodes - an organic natural way of killing slugs by using predatary parasites. I bought a packet which covers 40 sq metres which lasts 6 weeks in the soil £10.50 from The Organic Garden Catalogue.

This morning when I was tending my vegetables plots I found the slugs they were quite small about 2-4cm long sitting under my potato plants. I picked them all off, yuck! and promptly mixed up the nemotodes it was a quarter of the pack mixed in a 7 ltr watering can for each plot and just poured it all over the soil. It starts working within a week, so next week I will try again with my lettuces.